Minerals and Economic Warfare, Part 2

Click here for Minerals and Economic Warfare, Part 1

It was early in the 1980s and Central Africa was again in turmoil. Very little of what transpired made it into the homes of the average American, but some of it probably should have.

If my admittedly splotchy memory serves, Angolan UNITA rebels, supported by South Africa and mercenary troops from Cuba, seized a copper mine in the border region between Angola and Katanga; one of the provinces previously carved out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Of itself, the control of yet another copper deposit was no big deal, but… the mine was also one of the world’s leading producers of cobalt.

Ahhh, cobalt! It’s more than just a pretty color, or a way to make a really nasty bomb. Cobalt is also part of the glue that attaches tungsten carbide cutting tips to the steel shanks used in a metal lathe. What this means is that a bit of cobalt is required in the production of everything that has machined metallic parts. This requirement did, and still does, include much of what we take for granted — from the item itself, to the contraptions used to make it, move it, or use it.

Cobalt sounds like an earth resource we should probably assign some respect to…

Control of the cobalt supply — and the strategic and economic power it would provide — was likely one of the unstated goals of the invasion. Americans may have been oblivious, but the global resource markets paid immediate attention: the price of cobalt skyrocketed overnight.

I know — I was on the receiving end of the fallout.

At the time, I was project geologist on a massive sulfide deposit in southwestern Oregon, with sexy values reported for gold and silver, copper and zinc… and cobalt. We had been drilling at the Turner-Albright for several years, and after the current property owner’s thirty diamond core holes had been completed and analyzed, it was apparent that the company had discovered a multimillion-ton deposit of base and precious metals.

Since the potential ore body was just over a mile from the necessary infrastructure and close enough to the surface to be literally sticking out of the ground, it was going to be attractive to the major mining companies. The ones with the deep pockets that would be required to fund the next steps in the exploration and resource definition phases.

(I can still hear Lon — all-around fixer and in charge of crew enthusiasm — buzzing through the core shack while singing sixteen bars of “We’re in the Money” after a particularly impressive forty-foot intercept of nearly pure chalcopyrite in TAB-26. We already suspected that the core would assay well for both copper and gold, and it did: over 17% copper and nearly an ounce of gold to the ton. Oh yeah, good news all around.)

Since the time was definitely ripe, the claimant gave me the task of putting together a report to attract one of the biggies who could fund the project. Putting together such a promotional package is obviously a complex undertaking, and I sincerely wanted to get it right.

Probably the most important consideration was the estimate of the quantities of metals — how many tons at what grade. This included both what had already been defined by our drilling, as well as what we considered likely to be added by additional exploration.

I remember asking John (the owner of the small Canadian company that held the lease) which metals he wanted me to use in calculating the resource estimate. The gold, copper, zinc, and silver were obvious, but what about the cobalt? Drill results indicated that the higher-grade portions were in the pyrite halo surrounding the good stuff, and would therefore likely be waste. Since cobalt was cheap and readily available from Africa, John’s decision was to ignore it.

Not a problem, and we got to work. I spent several weeks painstakingly calculating the drill-indicated reserves, Wiz drafted the maps, Margo (our “Chromatic Engineer”) gave them some color, and we all missed a lot of sleep. But the final numbers supported our enthusiasm, and the overall package was sure to be well-received by the industry giants.

(BTW: If this type of deposit interests you, several years later I published an article in Oregon Geology about the Turner-Albright, and several years after that made it a small part of my Master’s thesis: an online roadside tour titled “A Layperson’s Guide to the Josephine Ophiolite”.)

Unfortunately, before we could ship the reports, South Africa decided to flex its muscles, UNITA and Castro got frisky, and the bad guys captured one of the world’s leading sources of cobalt.

After a couple weeks of sleepless nights, I was most likely comatose when the call from John came in. “We need to re-do the entire summary, and recalculate the resource estimates to include the cobalt.” The bad news is that multiple tours were already on his schedule, and we had to have the new package ready, drafted (sorry Wiz), and printed within the week.

Well, shucks (or something like that). What to do? We brewed a big pot of coffee and got back to work. The short version is that we got it done, enticed Noranda to joint-venture the property, and they drilled an additional two dozen very successful holes… cobalt and all.

And all because the Angolan UNITA rebels (with S.A. and Cuban support) took it upon themselves to do a land grab for minerals in Africa.

But that was then, and we have surely matured (woke?) since then. Right? My mother’s son would like to think so… but maybe not so much.

This is from a 31 January 2025 article in the New York Times, titled “A Conflict Erupts“ by Ruth Maclean:

Rebels backed by Rwanda are seizing huge tracts of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their progress has been swift and stunning. In a month, they have routed Congo’s underequipped army several times and caused more than half a million people to flee. On Monday, they captured Goma, a major Congolese city along the Rwandan border.

I’ve been talking to Goma residents. They’ve been hiding in their houses for the past week without electricity or running water. Gunfire, and occasionally bombs, explode around them. Some of them took in families who had fled from camps and villages outside the city. But plenty of those displaced people arrived in Goma knowing nobody.

Why are the rebels, known as M23, grabbing parts of eastern Congo? In their telling, they’re protecting ethnic Tutsis, the minority group massacred in a 1994 genocide, some of whom also live in Congo. But experts say the real reason is Congo’s rare minerals, which power our phones and devices. Congo’s mines are making the rebels — and their patrons in Rwanda — rich.

I guess not everyone got the memo…

And now we hear that the U.S. government is considering a continuation of arms to Ukraine in exchange for a taste of their rare earth minerals.

This is excerpted from a 5 February 2025 article in the NY Times titled “Trump Urges Trading Ukraine’s Critical Minerals for More U.S. Aid”:

President Trump said Monday he wants to strike a deal with Ukraine whereby Kyiv would supply the United States with rare earths and other minerals in exchange for American aid.

“We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine, where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things,” Mr. Trump said… “We want a guarantee.”

Ukraine is rich in critical minerals such as lithium, titanium and other rare earth elements, which are crucial for manufacturing a broad range of modern products including electric car batteries and motors, as well as wind turbines.

Mr. Trump’s offer comes as his new government has halted foreign development aid worldwide…

I’ve been asking myself for a couple years why Ukraine has evolved into such a proxy war between the east and the west, and why China — a historic foe to Russia with 2615.5 uneasy miles of border — seems so willing to come in on their side.

Ukrainian authorities say the country holds deposits of more than 20 critical minerals, with some consulting and equity firms valuing them at several trillion dollars. But experts caution that the true value is hard to estimate as many reserves remain inaccessible, in part because of the Russian occupation of parts of Ukraine.

Seeing as China clearly dominates the global supplies of the critical rare earth minerals needed for much of our advanced technology, the answer seems a bit more obvious, at least to me.

What’s more, Russia’s advances on the battlefield have allowed Moscow’s troops to seize significant reserves of rare earth minerals in Ukraine, and they are rapidly approaching other reserves. Russian forces are currently less than seven miles from a major lithium reserve in Ukraine’s southeastern Donetsk region.

Ukraine seems to be open to Trump’s proposal. According to a 4 February 2025 article on the Fox News website titled “Trump’s ‘rare’ price for US military aid to Ukraine called ‘fair’ by Zelenskyy”:

Zelenskyy told reporters Tuesday that Ukraine was open to an “investment” from “partners who help us defend our land and push the enemy back with their weapons, their presence, and sanctions packages.” 

The Fox article also stresses the viability of the Ukraine resource base, and the current status of Russian involvement:

Ukraine has strategic reserves of titanium, lithium, graphite and uranium, but much of its critical minerals are in areas currently under occupation by Russia. Donetsk, Luhansk and Dnipropetrovsk are all some of the most mineral-rich regions, meaning Ukraine would need to take back territory to get them out. 

Only you can decide how many grains of salt you want to put into any of this. Is it all “fake news”, or is there maybe a glimmer of reality?

I honestly struggle to wrap my faltering brain around what is happening in these days of modern times. What is right and what is wrong on a global scale? What does it take to be a good neighbor versus a bad? Are we a nation of astute traders, or simply saps to be taken advantage of? It’s questions like these that keep me awake at night, which is probably not optimal for a frustrated Bozo in his mid-seventies. Hopefully you are less conflicted than I am.

Important note to my (and your) grandkids… which are already facing far too many cans we have continued to kick down the road:

Leaving Ukraine out of this for the moment, Africa is surely an up-and-coming source of many of the critical things you are going to want and need: minerals, water, food, space to house an exploding population… and did I mention minerals?

Many would consider Africa as the proverbial “low-hanging fruit” and ripe for picking, which may help explain the interest of some of the world’s superpowers in the continent. How about the United States? I don’t hear much about our involvement (other than the Peace Corp and USAID, which is apparently being “deleted”), but sure have been hearing a lot about the nefarious activities of China and Russia…